


I weigh the sea; I weigh the storm

by Ruta



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Motherhood, Women In Power
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-07-02 12:20:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15796404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruta/pseuds/Ruta
Summary: Acquainted by Sansa about her plan to get rid of Littlefinger, Lord Royce promises that he will not interfere and gives his support, but on one condition. That she will return with him to the Vale and marry Robin Arryn.[Canon Divergence where Sansa is a mother and a widow and makes arrangements for the future.]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dialux](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dialux/gifts).



She had thought of calling her Minisa. Like Minisa Tully, her mother's mother.

A name is a powerful reminiscence, a reminder for the future.

Merely newborn and already betrothed to her uncle Edmure's son, her marriage will gather under the same banner not two, but three great houses. Arryn, Tully, the bastards Frey. (But not the Stark.)

In the end something fierce, burning and corrosive more than hatred and pride, convinced her differently.

Her daughter is not a Tully. Her eyes are blue like lapis lazuli and her dark hair is as soft as the plumage of a small blackbird.

She is a strange combination of colors and traits, this silent daughter of hers. She never cries, and when she does she makes plaintive sounds that remind the whines of her third husband on his deathbed. Sweetrobin died of a sudden fever and Sansa will not pretend it was a mournful moment.

Her daughter is blood of her blood.

She wanted a strong name for her. Not one with a sweet sound like hers, which was born during the summer, when the sun is warm and you don't know anything beyond the sugary taste of ripe fruit on the tongue. Her daughter is a winter child, when wolves howl in the heart of the storm and the cold night is so penetrating that it digs sores and scars into the skin.

So not Minisa.

Lyarra Arryn.

Lyarra as her father's mother.

Sansa doesn't know much about her. Mourning made her father taciturn and talking about the family lost during the Rebellion has always been difficult enough to convince all his children to desist from asking questions. All of them except Arya of course. Sansa has always been too sensitive to the pain in her father's eyes. A pain that now understands, that cannot be fought, but only accepted.

What little she knows of her grandmother, she has learned from Old Nan's tales. She knows she was beautiful, the same beauty that cursed her aunt Lyanna, capable of triggering desire in men as the most insidious of fires, but less refined and more ferocious, that there was a quiet dignity in her that made her regal and haughty and stubborn.

And this is the kind of woman that Sansa wants her daughter to become. Not a woman with easy smiles and close, caring and kindly affections, a woman who died during childbirth. But a woman who knows the pain of loss and learned to face it, to live with it. A woman capable of feeling compassion and putting fear and honor before silly songs and frivolous puerilities.

* 

When Jon is led in front of her, from the elevated position she occupies on the throne made of weirwood, Sansa observes him.

More than a year and a half has passed since the last time she saw him.

Gloomy, stern, imposing despite the average height.

Yet something is different. His stiff and secure posture, the manner in which the guards who escorted him are kept at a distance and the ambiguous impression it creates in anyone observing the scene: that they are not there to restrain him as a prisoner, but to serve him as their lord.

_(He arrived on the back of a dragon and after depositing him on one of the balconies of the maiden's tower and alerting the entire castle, the green monster flew away with the same speed with had arrived.)_

Jon has always had the ability to inspire loyalty in the people around him. But now his presence instills fear and puts in awe. Here the difference. He is no longer a warrior or a lord commander. He is a king.

 _A crownless king who has renounced the title_ , she remembers with bitterness.

The lords around her are restless like horses on the stone seats due to the prolonged silence. Sansa doesn't care. She keeps watching the man who was her brother. Who is her cousin, according to the missive that a raven brought from South a week ago. Who now looks at her with the same intense eyes as ever in the solemn face of Ned Stark. With his hand clasped around the pommel of the sword hanging from his hip and a calm expression, as if they have all the time of time.

Sansa knows exactly how she must appear. Austere. Tough. Restrained. She wears the colors of the Arryn, blue and white, and at her neck has the heavy pendant with the silver falcon that was Sweetrobin's wedding present.

Standing on her right is her daughter's nurse and Lyarra, in Mya Stone’s arms, is a tiny bundle hidden by too many blankets.

One minute, two minutes. When Lyarra's whimpering wails breaks into the High Hall, noisy like a thunder, without turning she strains her arms imperiously. The nurse hands to Sansa her daughter. Her face is already purple and those wiggles that seem a cheeping. Despite the excruciating tenderness she feels, it is sometimes difficult to find differences between her and Robin.

With a sure hand, she loosens the laces of the bodice. As soon as she approaches her breasts, Lyarra starts sucking greedily, hungry like a kitten.

The nervousness of the lords seems to increase exponentially along with their murmurs. Sansa can easily guess why.

Once her aunt Lysa offered a similar sight. And her cousin grew up to become the result of that paranoid, possessive, deviant love.

_I'm not my aunt._

She cannot trust anyone and the peace she has achieved in the Vale is as fragile as a dream. Lyarra is too young, delicate and small as a doll. Children die all the time. And despite this, she is her only hope.

_Look ahead. Fly high._

"Jon Snow," her voice echoes loud and clear between the blue-veined marble walls and the high ceilings. "You are in the presence of the Defender of the Vale and her lords to be judged for your actions. You have brought yourself into my house like a thief, terrorizing my servants with the threat of your dragon. Without invitation. Without a raven or an herald to announce your arrival. How do you intend to answer these accusations?"

"I didn't know I was under accusation."

While some lords stand up in protest for that insolent response, Sansa simply smiles. It is a calculating smile, without warmth or affection because she left her heart in Winterfell, in the Hall where Arya slaughtered Littlefinger, deciding her destiny, sanctioning her final exile from the home of her ancestors.

"You are not," she says, bitter as gall and with a tone of voice that suggests the opposite. "But tell me, please, if you had found one of my men in your private rooms, what punishment would you have reserved to him? The North is known for its indulgence. Would you have been compassionate then, as I am while I am questioning you or would you have killed him on the spot, piercing him with your sword? Answer, my lord. I am here to listen."

"Sansa." Emotion makes his voice hoarse. For the first time, he seems in conflict and all his arrogance has disappeared. Has he finally realized that he is at a disadvantage, of the danger looming over him like an ambush? "You know why I'm here."

Sansa raises her eyebrows, feigning curiosity and surprise. "Do I?"

He nods, a military gesture. "I'm here to save you."

Sansa bursts out laughing. She cannot avoid it. Nearly two years and Jon still believes he can protect her. Two years and he holds her gaze without shame, ready to repeat to the bitter end his promises filled with good intentions.

Here's what else has changed. First it was the fear of being hurt for the umpteenth time to make her cautious, to keep her from trusting him. Now it is grudge and experience that push her to laugh at him. The events proved that she was right and he wrong. Never again she will leave a man ratiocination or his low instincts to decide her destiny.

"Save me?" Sansa repeats slowly and if she didn't have Lyarra attached to her breast she would lean forward. Laughter scratched her throat like a fishbone swallowed by mistake. "I think you're wrong or misinformed, cousin. Where I am is where I want to be. If I'm here it's for my own will. The Eyrie is the house I've chosen, the house of my deceased's husband, of our daughter."

Jon seems about to retaliate. Sansa doesn't allow it. She has had enough. Of him, of his frowning face, of his steady gaze that seems to expose her and search, search, _search_.

With a nod, Sansa lets Lord Royce understand that she intends to dissolve the session. When Sansa gets up from the throne and returns Lyarra to the care of the nurse, the lords and the ladies also get up, showing the respect that is due to her as regent and Lady Protector of the Vale. These men and women of the Vale are proud people, made of a hard temper, almost as hard as that of the northerners. Even if they have doubts about her, they would never show them in front of a stranger and his false pretensions of friendship.

She is at the end of the stairs and is heading for the arches of the corridor that leads to her apartments when she hears the sound of a scuffle and Jon's voice - even before his hot hand on the elbow - stops her steps. She turns her head and he is there, incredibly close, enough to be inappropriate, enough that she feels the caress of his breath against her face. He has a sword pointed at his throat and one at his back, but he doesn't recede and doesn't let go of her arm. When he tilts dangerously forward, the tip of the blade scratches his neck and a trickle of blood escapes from the newly wound. And despite this, Jon doesn't look away from her, doesn't loosen his grip of steel.

"I will not leave you here," he says in a low voice, low enough for the words to be audible to her alone. "I came to take you home."

Sansa squints. For a brief moment she is tempted to put a hand on his cheek and feel the heat abandon his skin as she lets the sword sink into his throat. This is the measure of her anger. This is the gauge of her hatred for having abandoned her. It doesn't matter if he's back. It's too late. _Don’t you see? Don’t you feel it? I'm lost. The darkness has already taken me. I am outside your reach. There is nothing left to save._ He is back, yes, but a year too late.

"You're a fool, Jon Snow." She sees his eyes widen. Perhaps because of the coldness with she is staring at him and that now, at such a close distance, he cannot help but notice. Or maybe for her listless voice. "I already told you once, don’t you remember? No one can protect anyone." Sansa tightens her fingers around the blade pointed at Jon's throat. Dull to the pain that this causes, oblivious to the cuts she is getting, of her blood that now dribbles copiously along the edge of the blade.

Horror makes its way into Jon's striken-white face, mixed with rapture and astonishment and grief. A wry look, something between amusement and regret. He looks at her as if he doesn't recognize her, as if the person he sees disconcerts him. He looks at her as if she is a stranger, and he is weeping the death of the sister he knew.

"Go back to where you came from," she says, opening her fingers and letting the blood run down her fingers and palm. They are superficial wounds and Sansa remembers the lessons of Septa Mordane when she was nothing but a child, how much blood gushed from her fingertips even at the slightest accidental puncture of her needle. She takes a step back. "You are not welcome here."

 _I can see it_ , it say the look in his eyes.

Jon sighs and shakes his head, as if he has came to terms with himself, made an unpleasant decision. "I cannot, I promised your siblings that I would take you home."

_Your siblings._

"I am already home."

Jon doesn’t wince and doesn’t flinch, but he swallows and when he looks down, Sansa closes her hands into fists. Pain pierces her like fire and blurs her sight.

"My lady," Lord Royce calls her. Sansa stares at him with a gaze clouded by tears of suffering. She blinks. "My lady," he repeats with more kindness, but with the same urgency. "Allow me to escort you to your rooms." And turned to the guards: "Take the prisoner to the cells."

"No," Sansa rediscovers herself saying forcefully. Surprise flash in the faces of those present, except for that of Jon who remains mournful and pensive. She clenches her teeth and lifts her chin. "Jon Snow is my guest and I wish for him to be treated like one."

"Lady Sansa," Lord Royce intervenes, clearly dumbfounded by the turn of events, "would you wish I remind you that this man sneaked into the castle from a balcony of the eastern tower?"

"It isn't necessary since I exposed this fact a little while ago."

"And despite this, you intend to treat him as a guest?"

Sansa pierces him with a glare so cold that the man falls silent. "I intend to treat him with the respect I owe to a relative of mine, that I owe him as a son of King and the nephew of a Queen, or perhaps will you explain to Daenerys Targaryen why her heir was locked up in a cell and held prisoner?"

"Obviously you're right. I beg your pardon, my Lady." With a wave of his hand, he orders the guards to let him go.

The guards lower their weapons and Jon straightens his back. Without waiting to see him move as they lead him away, she turns and starts walking again.

"I'm not going to give up on you." Just like her when she spoke from the throne, his voice resounds stentorian and impossible to ignore. Sansa knows that it is for the point in the hall where he is, that’s the way in which it was designed and built (the circular-shaped plant, surrounded by arches and a domed ceiling) to give the impression that Jon's words reverberate from anywhere, as if repeating them were an infinity versions of him, young and old ones, from different points scattered in their lives, past and present and future, to mingle in an inseparable amalgam. "I will not leave, not without you."

Sansa doesn’t retrace her steps, she doesn’t slow down. Her ears buzz and she feels hot and cold at the same time. Mya glances at her furtively and Lord Royce's jaw is tight.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am prepared to go anywhere, provided it be forward.  
> David Livingstone

In the following days, the Eyrie is in turmoil. The tension would be unbearable to anyone else. Not to her, who remembers King's Landing before the Battle of the Blackwater.

In this case it isn't the threat of Stannis Baratheon's fleet that makes the Vale nervous, but the feared prospect of the anger of a silver-haired queen and her huge dragons, the promise of fire and blood she represents.

As if that weren't enough, now there's also the susceptibility of the scullery maids and the cook who sees the trays food prepared for Jon Snow return intact and made it a personal matter.

Enraged, tired from the sleepless nights because of  Lyarra and the days spent managing the castle and arguing with the lords for their impending move to the Gates of the Moon, Sansa finds herself in front of Jon's rooms. She knocks twice and getting no answer, knocks a third for good measure.

No reply comes from inside. Frowning, she doesn’t wait any longer and enters.

Jon is sitting by the window and is sharpening his sword.

When she closes the door behind her and Mya, he doesn’t raise his head. The only sign that witnesses the fact that he noticed their presence is a slight hesitation that lasts just a fraction of a second. Like a friction in the air, a disturbance in an otherwise perfect concentration.

"Sansa," he greets her stiffly as he continues to sharpen his sword.

"Jon," she says politely, crossing her hands in front of her. If this is how he intends to carry on their conversations from now on, she will not be the first to give up. "It was brought to my attention that you refuse food. Is there a reason in particular that you send back the dishes that are prepared for you? Are they not to your taste? If so, let me tell the cook your preferences and-"

"Damn it, Sansa!" Falling on the floor, the sword emits a metallic clang that makes her wince internally. Jon's gaze, like his voice, barely contains the extent of his irritation and pierces her from side to side. "Do you truly think I care about food?"

Sansa will not be affected by his bad temper. Once she might have reacted differently, becoming irritated in turn or trying to reason with him. "If your stay here is not to your liking," she punctuates carefully, arranging the folds of her gown with bandaged fingers, "you are free to leave at any time. Nobody will stop you."

For an instant it looks like Jon is about to explode. The vein on his temple, his mouth tightened upside down, the way he closed his eyes. Sansa recognizes the signs of his anger and the efforts he is making to keep it at bay. Then Jon opens his eyes and his gaze lingers on the bandages that completely cover her right hand. It softens.

"You really are impossible," he sighs. His voice is tinged with a kind of affectionate exasperation. "And stubborn. Why do you insist on not listening to me? Why don't you want to go home with me? Our family-"

"My family is here."

"What are you talking about? Arya and Bran-"

"They don't need me," she responds quickly. She doesn't want to talk about them. She doesn't want to _think_ about them. "Here I have my daughter and a satisfying life. I made my choice and I will not go back."

"Gods, what happened to you? What did they do to you?"

She would like to have compassion of Jon's suffering, a displeasure that is both guilt and regret. However, to forgive, to forget requires a generosity of which she is lacking. Sansa thinks of Cersei's ruthless smile, Joffrey's cruelty, Littlefinger’s devious soul, Ramsay's sadistic grin, Sweetrobin's whims and morbid attachment. Her monsters, the ghosts that haunt her nights.

What _didn't_ happen?

It is unfair to make the sins of others fall on Jon. He too, just like her, made his choices and must face the consequences. Therefore, resorting to a smile of circumstance that comes as easy as breathing, she lies shamelessly, "Nothing. Nothing happened to me."

Jon's dark eyes dance on her face in search of something, a crack, a chink. Not finding it, he hunches his back, sinking his head between his shoulders. He is no longer the proud and fierce king, but a man with all his faults and imperfections.

"Do you hate me so much?" His knuckles, around the abrasive stone, are white due to the force exerted in the grip.

Does she hate him?

The tunic he wears under his overcoat has a tiny tear on his wrist and she would like to mend it. His black hair and beard create a vivid contrast against the whitest skin, that of someone who hasn't seen the sun for a lifetime. His brow is furrowed and she wants to smooth those wrinkles. Make the thoughts and worries that caused them disappear.

"I don’t hate you."

Jon jerks his head up and his hope is a painful thing to see and must be stifled at the moment, nipped in the bud. No, it isn’t hate what she feels. To admit it is a bit less bitter than expected, like all truths torn with pain.

"But I don't trust you," she says. "I don't _want_ to trust you." Without waiting for his reactions, without having the courage to observe the roaring devastation of her revelation, Sansa turns and invites the nurse to come forward. Mya Stone obeys, moving with her usual silent elegance.

Jon must have forgotten her presence - despite her sturdy figure, Mya now manages to go unnoticed. She has a light step, her face perpetually in shadow because it’s hidden by the curtain of hair that reaches her chin - because he looks at her cautiously.

_Have you finally learned prudence?_

"You can trust Mya. Before becoming Lyarra's nurse she was my maid. Everything we say will remain within these walls."

And since Jon's expression remains veiled by suspicion, Sansa adds, "Mya is mute."

It hasn't always been this way. Mya Stone's blue eyes once shone together with the irrepressible sound of her mirthful laughter. Before losing her tongue, Mya was just like Arya. A wild and full of energy thing. But this story is not hers to tell.

Sansa takes Lyarra and gently pulls the blankets away. In sleep her daughter's face is placid and her mouth pouting.

"Jon," she says in a low voice, filled with a pride that transcends all reason and common sense, every acrimony. "I want you to know someone."

Jon seems suddenly intimidated and uncomfortable. When she hands her to him, Sansa has to show him how to hold her because in his inexperience Jon touches Lyarra as if she is fire and crystal, something fragile and dangerous. Sansa reaches out to push a lock from Lyarra's forehead. In the movement, her hair touches Jon's arm and she hears him holding his breath.

"Meet Lyarra Arryn, my daughter."

"Why did you let me see her?" he asks and she recognizes that bewildered look. Its meaning tinkles in her head together with the distant echo of laughter and sunny days, the sound of wooden swords colliding, of familiar voices.

Sansa takes time to respond, savoring the bittersweet aftertaste of the loss that is confused with that of an ephemeral reunion.

"Because you could be the only Stark she'll ever know." Lyarra won't remember it, but one day she will tell her about the long journey Jon Snow made to come and meet her in person.

"She's so small," Jon says in a choked voice and his face clears. He strokes Lyarra's hand and she squeezes her fist with tiny, strong fingers around his thumb.

He exhales a sigh and the traction on his shoulders melts, the tension is relieved. Jon rests his forehead against Lyarra's and Sansa feels her chest tighten. It is not exactly sadness, it is not completely happiness. But it is fullness and a feeling that fills the empty spaces inside her.

"You will grow up to become brave and kind like your mother," she hears him say and in the midday light for a moment she sees another man, hears the deep voice of her father. "One day you will be a great lady. You will rule the castle of a noble house and you will marry a man who is worthy of your love, who will respect you and who will fight your enemies for you. He will be good and honorable and will live to make you happy."

Sansa holds her breath.

_When you're old enough, I will make a match with a high lord who's worthy of you, someone good and gentle and strong._

Her first instinct is to snatch Lyarra from Jon's embrace.

The second, even more intense, is an impossible desire. Touch him and find out if what she feels is not the result of her imagination. A kiss to understand once and for all.

_You cannot. Don’t you remember? He is not yours to love. He will never be._

The kiss burns in her mind like a burn, forbidden, and turns into a sigh.

Jon doesn't seem to notice. He is too busy with Lyarra and in the smile he gives her over his shoulder - intimate, complicit, amazed and joyful. As if to say. Do you also see what I see? - Sansa finds part of that peace that she has not had since when, on the Kingsroad, surrounded by Lord Royce and the knights of the Vale, she turned to take a last wistful look at Winterfell.

* 

They are nightmares of fire and ice, of shadows and blood, sighs in the night and an incandescent rain those from which Jon wakes up with a start.

Sweating wet, heart pounding in his chest, he sits up and his hand is already tight around the dagger that Arya gave him before he left and that he leaves under his pillow every night.

The figure against which the dagger is pointed widens her eyes, but doesn’t move. There is no trace of fear in her smooth and ageless face. Jon blinks and takes a moment to focus on the room, on the girl in gray at the foot of the bed, her eyes identical to those of Gendry Waters. When he recognizes her, a feeling different from fear tears his stomach. A more desperate anxiety.

"What's going on?" He asks quickly. "Is it Sansa?"

Mya Stone gives a nod of denial and the apprehension fades briefly before returning, domineering.

"Lyarra?"

A slow nod.

Without delay, he gives himself just enough time to put on his boots before following her in the cold and long corridors of alabaster. He runs like he never ran in his life.

Sansa's apartments are immersed in darkness. Only the moon spreads glimmering reflections in the bedchamber, making the contours of things suffused and languid like in a dream. Or a nightmare. Sharp and tormented, Lyarra's sobs break the silence.

"Why are you here?" When she turns around, alerted by the sound of their footsteps, there is no warmth in Sansa or surprise at the sudden break in. Livid shadows seek her red eyes, her forehead is wrinkle, her hair a long, shining and ruffled waterfall. Fatigue makes her distracted and agitated, as if all her energy is needed to keep herself awake. "You shouldn't be here. If someone found you-"

"What happened?" he interrupts her, coming closer.

It looks like she’s about to object. More penetrating than before, Lyarra's crying doesn’t calm down and something in Sansa's hostile expression cracks, showing uncertainty and vulnerability.

"She doesn't stop crying. No matter what I do, she doesn't stop. The Maester says it's too early for teething. Usually when I sing it's enough to calm her down."

"How long have you not slept?"

"Two days," she answers without looking him in the eye, her voice firm and flat.

Behind her, Mya Stone raises four fingers.

* 

_Lyarra was born to die._

Sansa hates this thought and hates herself for having formulated it, but is strong enough to accept the partial truth that it contains.

_Lyarra was born to die._

A part of her always knew. Since the premature birth, as painful and violent as a bloodbath. Her birth was difficult. There were complications. They had to press on her abdomen and crush and cut and there was a moment when Sansa fainted due to pain and Gretchel had to throw cold water over her face to make her revive.

Lyarra was born in pain, like any other child before her. Crying, screaming at the top of her anger at having been torn from the safe confines of her mother's womb. Sansa remembers the piercing sensation of the last thrust, the fatigue, the pang of agonizing suffering and that fear impossible to quiet, as if something had torn apart inside her, a split that nothing could heal. Part of her died that day. The daughter, the sister, the wife. Make room for the new by burning the old.

And then Mya, the sleeves of her dress rolled up to her elbows and arms full of bruises due to the pinches she had given her, placed her against her chest. Mya who no longer has a voice, but has found other ways to communicate and express herself. Mya who manages to contain more words than Maddy's indiscreet talk in one glance. Mya. Her face flushed and shiny with sweat and that quiet and thunderous smile that made her eyes shine, as once managed the drunken kisses of an unworthy boy or the dangerous vertigo of a climb along a rocky slope.

 _My daughter,_ she thought possessive, looking at the bloody and yellowish baby. When she noticed the shape of Lyarra's head she thought at what Arya would have say and cried for the first time, wishing she was there with her.

 _The swelling will decrease_. She remembers the assurances of Maester Colemon, appalled at the idea of having disfigured the heir of the Arryns, last of an extinct lineage. _Gradually it will take a normal color and the head will acquire a more regular shape._

Sansa has always had a predilection for lemon cakes. Is it not fatally appropriate for her daughter to be born with the head of that form?

Oh, Arya would surely have been delighted.

The Maester was right. The swelling decreased and the wrinkles reduced to disappear, absorbed by not really plump cheeks, but with a healthier appearance.

Then came other concerns. The strangled sound that sometimes wakes her at night, like a little whistle, as if every wheezing was a torment. The reddish color that blushes her neck if she lies on her side for too long. The bluish shade of the lips. The insomnia. The persistent cough. The lack of appetite. The first few months Sansa had to get rid of milk in excess because her breast ached from too much weight.

And there are other things. Things she will never admit. The tears she secretly cried in her bed, along with Lyarra when she didn't know how to calm her, she didn't understand what she wanted. Loneliness and mourning for her Mother’s advice; for the possibility that her Father knew his niece; for Robb and the rest of her family; and for the living, even more than the dead. Lyarra will never know the North, the real cold, the glacial beauty of its landscape. She will never have her direwolf. She will never pray under the heart tree and will never have to bear the weight of his gaze that scrutinizes your soul. Except for her, she will not know other family affections, she will grow up alone, without the warmth and light-heartedness that marked her childhood. And this is such a big defeat. Knowing that she is responsible for depriving her daughter of a thousand possibilities. She will only know her love, her pride and she prays that it is enough.

But now, with yet another attack, Sansa looks at the pale, wet skin of Lyarra's face. So pale that she can see the contour of the subcutaneous veins.

Sansa massages her back, in the space between the shoulder blades, with the circular movements that were taught to her. She has already applied the ointment on her chest, wrists, throat, forehead and temples. Her daughter smells of mint and beeswax and her nostrils remain dilated, her eyes wide open and watery as she breathes with difficulty and sobs, and sobs and breathes with difficulty. She knows that what she's doing is right. It's all correct. So why is Lyarra not feeling better? What is she doing wrong?

Then Jon arrives. He speaks to her, silencing every protest, asks peremptory questions, his expression gentle and worried and she is so exhausted that after a while she - _gives up_.

She doesn’t notice that she is crying. She doesn’t notice that she approached the alcove protected by the curtains because she suddenly felt herself wavering. She doesn't notice that Jon followed her until he takes Lyarra from her arms with extreme delicacy. Mya passes an arm around her waist and pushes her to the bed.

The moonbeams rain down from the windows and frame Jon, busy rubbing Lyarra's back and murmuring something in her ear. Lyarra has her little head wedged into his neck, her fist clenched around his jerkin. Her breaths seem to be more regular already.

Mya pushes back the hair from her forehead, wipes away her tears, holds her hand.

Too tired to protest, she lets that the illusion of the past and of what she lost conciliates her sleep. Her father has her daughter in his arms and her mother's caresses remove her apprehensions.

For an instant, in the bedroom that never belonged to her aunt Lysa, but that was of Jon Arryn's first wife (Lady Jeyne Royce, Lord Royce younger sister’s and according to rumors the only wife really loved and for this never forgotten), Sansa buries the truth and cradles herself in a lie. For a moment she is Sansa Stark again and not Sansa Arryn. For a moment she is a mother, but she returns to being a daughter and a sister.

* 

_Robin's hairless body is that of a child._

_Gracile, weak and soggy. It doesn’t inspire in her any feeling outside a bland pity and what she once might have misunderstood with tenderness. There is no love within her. Not even the echo of it has survived. Where once there was joy and lightheartedness and blessed innocence, now there is the frustrating disillusionment of reality that leaves no room for anything else. The years of her spring have faded precociously and winter has collapsed upon her, icing the blood in her veins, atrophying her heart._

_It is the concentrated expression of a child and not of a man that of yet another husband who pushes himself inside her, whom she welcomes against her chest after he has finally stopped squirming like an eel and collapses on her suddenly. She accepts with relief the pangs of pain in the lower abdomen, the viscous sensation between the legs. They are proof that the deed was completed, it served a purpose after all._

_Robin kisses her breasts, awkward and clumsy. His lips suck greedily, planted around her nipples as if he were hungry and she lets him do it, caressing his thin and soft hair. His movements are slowed and Sansa understands from his dazed expression that it won't be long before he falls asleep._

_When it happens, she extricates herself from his tight embrace, careful not to move him more than is strictly necessary. Robin knows how to be capricious, even more than usual, if disturbed in his sleep. She leaves the bed. She will have to come back before he wakes up (Robin tends to react violently when he doesn't find her and she soon learned to adapt to his tantrums, his fickleness, to foresee his irascible shots, to go along with him). However, there are still many hours before dawn, enough to allow herself some semblance of peace._

_In the next room, Mya waits for her, still and silent as a stone statue. The robe rests on her bare shoulders, but the cold under her skin doesn’t diminish and the night air doesn’t soothe what she feels. It sharpens, creating the impression of having a blade stuck in her throat._

_She brings to her lips the cup that is extended to her and observes without fondness the view from the narrow and long window of the tallest tower of the Eyrie, the snowy and foreign mountains, the ancient profile of Giant’s Lance._

_The flavor of the fertility potion is bitter and she tightens the lips, forcing herself to finish it as usual. She knows she cannot sweeten it, otherwise it would lose all effect._

_The moon is almost full and the wolf inside her thinks about the home she left behind. Looks at the white walls of the new aviary for which she traded her freedom, touches the soft brocade fabric of the curtains, the complicated weaves of the carpets, the hunting scenes depicted on the hanging tapestries, the elegant opulence of the furnishings. Meanwhile, she craves the bare coarseness of solid stone and dark wood, the simple linearity of things built out of necessity and not vanity, the pungent smell of pine, of wet earth, the light mist that accompanies gray dawns._

_Claws the embroidered edges of the nightgown against the chest and doesn’t breathe. Her eyes are hollow, her cheeks dry. The thing that once throbbed alive and powerful inside her is now dry and hard._

I am prepared to go anywhere, provided it be forward.

* 

_When Robin dies, she is at his bedside. Collects the last agonizing gasp against her chest. It is always she who closes his eyelids, she who touches his forehead for the last time in a kiss that could be that of a mother, a sister. That should never have been of a wife's._

_When it’s all over, when the remains of the last Lord of the Arryns join those of his predecessors, noble men and proud women all the more worthy than the person who was her husband, Sansa goes into labor. This is not the time. Her son is early, but it is the price to pay for the devotion to her husband-child, for too many vigils. She has no time to discover the solitude (freedom) of her new status as a widow._

_Her heart was empty and cold. The immediate love for her daughter when she crosses her eyes for the first time -_ blue eyes. Tully eyes, the eyes of Mother _\- it is as old as the mountains of the Vale and resounds inside her soul like a trill of silver._

* 

Sansa doesn't remember much of the previous night. Strange images and mostly distorted memories filled her sleep. Despite this her mind is relaxed, her body rested. The reflection in the mirror shows her the image of a woman with a long and dour face, pale as a ghost, but with less pronounced shadows around the eyes.

What little she remembers, however, is enough to crestfallen her.

It is with this feeling - degrading humiliation, weakness, wounded pride - that she looks for Jon.

When she finds him, the weight of his intense gaze is like the breeze of the wind when it blows from North, strong enough to make eyes water, to chill to the bone, but at the same time familiar and dear and invigorating.

"I don't need your help," she says, lifting the chin to face him proudly. "Nor your dragon. Nor your men. I don’t need you. We will survive the winter."

Jon continues to stare at her and Sansa may think that the glowing thing in his eyes is sadness. Sadness and resignation. As if he had already foreseen what she would have said. Had even feared it. As if in the end, no matter how he had prepared himself, now that it happened, he discovered that the wound inflicted is more devastating than he had imagined.

"Would you rather die than accept my help?"

"An honorable death is preferable to a dishonorable life."

"To die is to die," Jon replies harshly. It does sound like words spoken with knowledge, outcome of experience. (Part of her would like to ask, find out how and why.) "And you will if you don’t accept my offer."

Maybe. She could die, it's true. All of them could. It would be foolish to pretend not to have considered the possibility. Her assignment is to prevent that from happening. Winter has come and promises to be long and terrible, worse than any dreadful prospect described by Old Nan tales. To refuse Jon's help, with all that it entails - the alliance with what will almost certainly become the umpteenth ruler established on a cursed throne - could be a mistake. It is a mistake that she’s willing to commit if it means remaining faithful to her intentions of non-intervention and extraneousness to the conflict. On the other hand, it is not for herself that she has to think of.

"So I have to choose whether to betray the Vale or my daughter," she says.

Jon frowns. "What are you talking about?"

"Lyarra must stay in the Vale," Sansa explains. It doesn't look enough and it's not, not for Jon. "She was born early, two days after I buried Robin. The Maester says that the first year will be the most critical and at the moment it is unthinkable to move her to the Gates of the Moon. That's why we're stuck here. The lords refuse to go without me and I refuse to go knowing that Lyarra may not survive the journey."

And here is the truth that she refuses to put into words.

_Lyanna was born to die._

Closing her eyes, she turns her back and walks away.

* 

After the first weeks of open hostility, the Vale seems to have accepted Jon Snow's presence as a necessary, albeit bitter, medicine. It’s obvious to everyone what is the reason that drove him so far from home and that still causes him to persist in his status as unwanted guest.

Nevertheless, if there is one thing that the residents of the Eyrie have learned about their Lady in two years, it’s that Sansa Arryn is a force to be reckoned with. Apparently breakable, with a strong temperament and a fortitude that shouldn’t be underestimated and which she gave proof of in her brief marriage to Robin Arryn. Although there are still grievances and resistances, nobody doubts her qualities. In her converge all the merits and the defects of two great Houses and now also the pride of theirs.

"Why did you come here?"

Sansa doesn’t lift the face from the embroidery she is working on. It's a bonnet for Lyarra with small snowdrops and a goldfinch singing on a branch.

"Littlefinger was a danger and had to be eradicated," she replies. She feels his presence again. His breath on the neck, always one step behind her. His constant whispers in her ear. "I resisted as long as I could."

Sansa lays the needle, stares at the arched windows, but without really seeing them. Meanwhile she is recalling memories of which he has no knowledge. To begin with, he wasn't there to share its burden. "One night Arya came to me. She didn’t intend to wait any longer and she would act, with or without my consent. So when it became clear that I could no longer count on her patience, I secretly requested a meeting with Lord Royce. I knew he detested Littlefinger and that he wouldn't get in my way. I couldn’t run the risk of alienating the Vale. He approved my plan, a public execution and promised his support, but on one condition. That I would return with him to Eyrie and marry Robin."

_I saw what you accomplished here, Lady Sansa. Is it too much to hope for the same dedication and devotion to the house I serve? We are doomed to ruin otherwise. What will become of the Vale? Once we were King of the Mountains._

"You accepted," Jon says, showing little interest or emotion.

"I did what I had to preserve peace," she replies. "For my family."

"Why didn't you write to me? If I had known... I would have returned immediately."

"I wrote to you once. You never answered." She doesn't like to remember those days. The moment when Littlefinger’s malicious whisperings had become real.

"Sansa, I'm sorry.”

But Sansa had enough of mitigating circumstances and pointless justifications. What can they be used for? Why should he apologize when they both know that what he did saved the North, guaranteed them a chance in a war against the impossible? Why should she apologize when she knows she acted for the same reason? Their family, their home before anything else.

"Do you love her? Your dragon queen."

The hesitation is a sufficient answer.

Sansa picks up the needle. The last seams are crooked and she starts to undo them. "Then don't judge me."

* 

It is by watching him interact with Lyarra. The serious way he talks to her, like he would address an adult, as if she could understand the meaning of his words, remember them. The patient way he holds her until she falls asleep. The long night walks, back and forth in her private apartments, after he discovered that it served to calm her. The attention with which he touches her. Warrior hands, calloused and used to handling a sword, that suddenly become thoughtful and cautious in their effort to be soft and light.

"You're good with her," Sansa comments. Lyanna is sitting on Jon's knee and laughs delightedly as he moves his leg imitating a horse's trot. "One day you'll be a good father."

Jon goes dark and she can't understand why –

"She can't have children," Jon says, his hand dropped on Lyarra's brown curls in a caress full of tenderness. "Daenerys."

He doesn't look her into the eyes. Jon, who always wanted a family. At the thought that he will never have it with the woman with he chose to share his life, her eyes fill with tears. _Oh, Jon._

* 

"What was he like? Your husband."

"He was a nagging, sickly boy," she replies. _I married a child and that child left me a piece of himself before he died._ Most of the time she tries hard not to think of Robin. There are no particular reasons for doing so. At the same time, she doesn’t even have particular reasons to recall with pleasure the year she spent with him and this is the only explanation that counts in the end. 

"I heard that sometimes he could be... difficult."

"Not worse than Joeffrey or Ramsay," she answers without thinking.

He stiffens, but she doesn't take back her words.

Jon doesn’t mention him never again.

* 

The fabric that Jon gave her is magnificent, of a stormy gray that recalls the shades of cloud in Arya's eyes, the iron colors of the Stark family crest. By now Jon must have noticed how she prefers clothes in shades of sky-blue and white. It is an attempt to remind her who she was, or perhaps to test her.

"I'm not a Stark anymore." Sansa wants him to understand. This time it was her choice. She doesn’t intend to go back.

Jon smiles, a rueful smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. He covers her hand with his. "You will always be a Stark to me."

* 

"How are they?"

It’s the question she has avoided asking since he arrived, but that has filled her every thought over the last two years, since the day she left Winterfell.

"They survive. They fight." Jon rubs his neck, eyes focused on the fire, before kneeling beside the fireplace and starting to revive the languishing embers. His face as well as his gaze is filled with amber and bronze reflections. "Sometimes I feel like I don't know them. They are so different. Bran loved stories, and now all he does is live those stories in his head. Arya is the same in everything that matters. She is independent and strong, but sometimes in her eyes I have the impression of seeing dozens of strangers. She would never admit it, but I know she misses you." He gives her a sideways glance from which she doesn't hide. "She feels guilty, as if she forced you to make the wrong decision."

"It wasn't wrong," Sansa says softly, continuing to move her foot to swing the cradle in which Lyarra rests. "Sometimes the options available to us are not right and wrong and we are forced to choose the lesser evil."

Jon tightens his mouth in a grimace that is not really a grimace, that is a mixture of bitterness and other feelings. "So you admit that coming here was wrong."

"It was until Lyarra was born."

* 

Three months have passed and (the thought is dangerous) Sansa is beginning to get used to Jon's presence, to their conversations, to seeing him at breakfast or in the High Hall. If before he seemed incredibly out of place, a crow in a nest of pigeons and hawks, now he isn’t anymore. It is easy to look for Jon and find him, in the procession of Lord and Lady, dark and solemn against the walls in white marble, with the torches that throw a glimmer of fire on his long and grave face; or against the narrow arched windows, intent on staring at the cliff like a condemned man, trapped by fate. And perhaps this is what haunts her, the idea of having contributed to creating this standstill, of having forced him into a compromise that is not part of his impulsive nature.

"Why are you still here? You know I won't go with you."

"I know," he replies. He has already sharpened Arya's dagger. Now it's his sword's turn. (Jon is never empty-handed or idle. Busy with training or giving advice on how to secure the stronghold for the winter based on what he remembers of his years at Castle Black, to carve animals from the wood for Lyarra, there is always something he is doing or is about to do. Jon is a source of ideas, intentions, actions.)

"Then why-"

"Why?" There is a subtle note in his voice that, despite the apparent calm with which he is talking, warns her, that screams of danger, that advises her to run while she can. They are walking on a very dangerous ground, have been doing it since the beginning.

"Can you imagine how I felt when I returned to Winterfell to discover that you weren't there?" His hands are clenched in fists, one above the white wolf-shaped handle that reminds her of Ghost. "I had to find out about your wedding from Cersei Lannister. I promised to protect you, but what did I do for you? What have I done besides disappointing you, again and again? _You_ should have been queen. Not me. If we won the battle that day it was thanks to you. And instead I left you to reign alone. You came here because of me. If I had never gone south, if I had listened to you and sent an emissary to Daenerys-"

"You did what you had to," she says. "What you thought was right."

"But at what price?" The bitterness she hears in his hoarse voice is something new. It scratches her ears. "I lost you." When he crosses her eyes, Sansa must restrain herself from to reach out to chase away the disruptive pain that overshadow his face.

"Oh, Jon." She touches his cheek because touching him at that moment is a fatal and tragic necessity. "You can't lose something you never had."

"Could I have had you?" He then asks, stroking the inside of her wrist with burning fingers. "If I had stayed."

 _If she had not decided to end the danger represented by Petyr's subterfuges. If she hadn't married Robin. If she hadn't had Lyarra._ So many if, too many. Life is not built on hypotheses, but on developed decisions. If you make mistakes and collapse, you get up from the fall and go on and on. Mistakes become your armor, a perpetual reminder of what you've been.

"I don't know." With difficulty, she finds her voice over the lump that prevents her from breathing normally. "But what's the point of digging up the mistakes of the past? We live in the present. You have duties toward the North as I have toward the Vale." Yet she doesn’t object when he intertwines his hand with hers, or when he kisses her forehead.

* 

When a crow comes from Winterfell, Sansa knows what to expect. She is ready, whatever the message contains. It is the first crow that arrives from home in two years, but it isn’t because of trepidation the tremor that runs through her fingers as she unrolls the dispatch. It's panic. Crazy, unreasonable, absolute. A part of her cannot help it, her first instinct is to assume the worst. The death of all that is dear to her, the destruction of everything she loves. She knows she can survive the loss, whatever form it takes. She knows she can survive. She doesn't know if she wants. Not again.

The message is written in a calligraphy that she doesn’t recognize and is signed by Samwell Tarly. There are no references to Arya or Bran or the current state of the war.

The entire letter is a prayer, that of giving back to the army his commander, to let him go. As if she was the one to blame for the constant postponements with which Jon delays his departure, his return to the North. As if the reason why he is still in the Vale is because he was forced, because he was prevented from taking his leave.

She refuses to let herself be affected by the ridiculous accusations - they are not, however. If she had wanted him to leave, she would have find a way to convince him. Not that it worked in the past. Not really. Jon seems inclined to do the exact opposite of her every suggestion.

When Jon takes the letter, he accepts it, neglecting to comment on the fact that it has already been opened and clearly read.

Sansa leaves him alone and that evening she is not surprised to note his absence in the High Hall nor when Lord Royce informs her that Jon has been investigating the state of their barns and of the men they could renounce without affecting their defenses.

That night she hasn’t a wink of sleep and Mya watches her from the bay window as she paces up and down her solar, Lyarra in her arms.

At dawn she is exhausted, irritable and twitchy. Mya went to the kitchen to prepare an herbal tea that she hopes can help her to relax.

Therefore she is alone and a bundle of nerves and agitation. Laying Lyarra in the wrought-iron cradle, she covers her with furs and laces and then she sits in the chair facing the fire, numb. And that's how he finds her: with her head in her hands and a vacant expression, her mind throbbing painfully in the throes of a storm of divergent heartaches and reflections, like she’s gripped by a kind of fever, has fallen prey of her own delusions.

"I can't go," Jon begins in a loud and eager voice and advances in a rush, with reckless haste. "Not without telling you the truth." He doesn't seem to have slept either. He wears the same clothes as the day before. When he notices the cradle, the fervor is blunted into an intensity no less fierce, but remotely restrained.

Jon runs his hand through his hair and takes a deep breath before speaking, but when he starts, not before making sure he has her full attention, he doesn't seem able to stop. "At first I didn't understand what I felt. It seemed familiar. It was a feeling I knew. It was affection, but it was different from what I feel for Robb or Arya or Bran or Rickon. It was strange and I convinced myself that it was due to the fact that we were practically strangers. We grew up together as brother and sister, but even then we were distant. I knew all about you, the things you liked, your favorite stories, the one that scared you and yet I was never the guardian of your secrets, your friend. I knew what was within everyone's reach. I saw you and took for granted that what was to know about you was all there. That you loved to dance and sing, that your favorite dessert was lemon cake. I was never your favorite brother and you were never my little sister. When I found you again and you apologized, when you looked at me like you had looked at Robb and Father in the past, but at the same time you had never looked at them, as if I were the knight you had always wanted, even then I would have could understand it... but how could I have accept the truth? How could I have admit what I felt if I knew it was terribly wrong? An abomination in the eyes of the gods, of our family?"

"When I discovered the truth about my mother and the relief of not being your brother anymore overcame the pain of losing the only family I ever knew. I should have understood, then. And instead I wallowed in self-pity, in anger. How much time have I wasted? How many opportunities have I lost?"

Jon gives her a miserable and desperate look. "Imagine this," he says, quiet and frowning. "To return home and not find you. Find out that I had lost you in the worst way. Knowing that if I had been faster, more forward-looking, you wouldn't have been forced to leave our house, to leave me. All this is my fault."

Sansa opens her mouth to speak and then - _then_ Lyarra begins to cry and whatever she was about to say bursts like a soap bubble.

* 

"Give me your hand, cousin. Let's say goodbye as good friends."

They are in the Crescent Chamber, surrounded by the rapacious eyes of the Vale, silent and alert as sentinels around them.

In his traveling outfit, with the fur cloak she has mended for him (that's what she sewed at Castle Black and she tried to fix it better than she could since he stubbornly refused to replace it with a new one ), Jon watches her hand, troubled.

Sansa would laugh, but the unvarnished truth is that she feels herslef on the edge of a high cliff and about to fall.

Eventually Jon takes the hand that she holds out to him and gracelessly keeps it between his. He brings it closer to his lips. The kiss is short and shakes her more than she intends to admit. Jon seems to pick up her discomfort because he lets her go almost immediately. (It is stupid to feel the absence of that contact. To perceive it as a cold burn.)

"Do you want me to deliver a message to Arya and Bran on your behalf?" he says as adjusts his gloves.

Sansa fights against the lump in the throat. "Tell them that there is no day that I don’t miss them. Tell them that I am the proud mother of a little girl. And that they will always be welcome in my house."

Jon deliberately nods and avoids eye contact, turning his back to her and walking away. He has already greeted Lyarra the night before and watching them Sansa had to suppress the temptation to ask him to stay, to express all the things she didn't say when he opened her heart to her, before Lyarra woke up and remind her responsibility, her obligation. And their commitment to the service of something greater than theirself. It is a selfish desire to want to hold him back, knowing that his presence is necessary to the front, however –

On the door, Jon stops, unable to take the last step outwards.

"Jon?" she calls, confused.

At the sound of her voice, she sees him turn around. It’s too far away to catch a glimpse of his expression, but there is a new determination in his posture, in the way he is coming towards her, quickly retracing the room in reverse. When he is in front of her, without her being able to do anything, he takes her hands, squeezing them in his and _oh_ , _oh_ , it is so different from the clumsy attempt of a little while ago. This time the grip is full of warmth, affection, attachment and she feels the sensation of a sudden thud in the chest.

"I'll be back for both. At the end of the war." Jon's eyes are serious and full of promise. "I'll be back," he repeats a second time, as if the first hadn't been enough. "Will you wait for me?"

The voice fails her and Sansa has to make three attempts before she can speak intelligibly. "Yes," she says and beams.

Jon's smile is so bright that Sansa is blinded by it. She cannot avoid smiling in the same way, at first hesitant and then more confident. Jon's hands accompany her all the way and only let her go when she feels again in control of herself and not at the mercy of the tumult in her head.

"Goodbye, Sansa."

"Goodbye, Jon."

But it is not a goodbye, it will not be.


End file.
